Review of Foreign Film Markets During 1938

American motion pictures continued to enjoy widespread popularity throughout the world during 1938, although the intensification of difficulties abroad has resulted in a drop of 70 to 65 per cent in America's domination of the world's motion picture screens. The obstacles encountered have been of diverse character, including legislative restrictions, quota systems, high taxes, foreign-exchange controls, occasional excessive censorship, so-called “racial” theories, fervent efforts to build up local film industries, active hostilities in the Far East and Spain, transfers of territories, and such intangible factors as uncertainty and apprehension. — Various significant legislative enactments occurred during the year in Europe. Great Britain imposed a new quota system, to last for 10 years. Notwithstanding the erection of new barriers, American films have continued to enjoy a substantial European market. — During 1938, foreign motion picture production totaled 1706 feature films, against I809 in 1937. The countries of the Far and Near East led in production. with 967 features, as compared with 959 in 1937. Production in Europe fell off sharply, the total for all Europe being only 609 features. Latin-American feature-film production increased by 40 films to a 1938 total of 130, Mexico being the largest producer, with 60 features. — The Latin-American market at present appears to afford a promising opportunity to offset the restriction of our picture markets in other parts of the world. — Spanish-dialog films have scored notable box-office successes in nearly every Latin-American country in which they have been shown locally produced pictures having often exerted a powerful appeal during the past year, because they have portrayed familiar aspects of life, in a language understood by the audiences. On the other hand, a wealth of recent evidence demonstrates the grave defects and difficulties of the motion picture production attempted in certain countries abroad on wholly insufficient foundations.

Print ISSN

0097-5834

Published

1939-08

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J11964